Early Retirement Extreme Forums

It was a tomahawk cruise missile with a pizza box duct taped to it.

The first drone (in the civilian world) to fly beyond line of sight was approved by the FAA last week and was flown here in Alaska. It was a short flight, only about ~4 miles, but this should pave the way for more being approved going forward. They flew it along the pipeline, which makes more sense as first use than something like urban delivery services. Rural areas are less likely to see accidents and issues with drones and regular aircraft making them the likely choice for first use until the technology gets better. I imagine farming, surveying, security/monitoring etc. will be the gateway going forward.

Sclass wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:53 pm

I think I’d like to use mine to drop my neighbor’s dog bombs back on his property. He just walks his dog over to my lawn, lets it poop and walks away.

Coming soon to enforce neighborly behavior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM

If it self-destructs on contact with target, that's your perfect murder right there. 5-10 years time I guess?

Designing smart body armour able to turtle up upon recognising incoming objects as hostile seems much more difficult in comparison. But then, historically offence/attacking was usually a superior strategy.

Oh man Ego you had me going there for the first five minutes. Had me asking myself what has happened in embedded DSP since I retired. That package looked a little too small for its facial recognition and evasion capabilities.

The real stuff isn’t that far behind.

https://youtu.be/w2itwFJCgFQ

This is the Domino's pizza delivery by drone in New Zealand. The trip itself was only three minutes. The delivery site was 20 minutes from Auckland, not the Domino's site. If you watch the video, you call tell its not going 240MPH. Even for Dominos, that would be an excessive exaggeration of delivery speed. At the speed it was traveling, a group of really enterprising birds could have had pizza that day. What I did notice is that Emma and Johnny Norton did not have to take the pizza's out of those red pouches upon receipt of the delivery. This was a food temperature test as well. So I'm not sure how that would work, keeping the pizza hot for distances outside three minutes. But pizza with cranberries on it? Must be a native thing.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/16/dominos ... ouple.html

Alphabet has created Air Traffic technology.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/2069 ... ontrol-app

The FAA is now threatening a 25K fine for weaponizing a drone. This would include but not be limited to flame throwers, bombs, guns, fireworks etc.

https://nypost.com/2019/08/26/faa-threa ... ir-drones/

The article contains a very moving video of what I think are Russian guys attaching a chain saw to a drone they creatively name "killer drone." The part where it simultaneous decapitates two snowmen actually gave me chills. They also employ it for the more quotidian function of removing icicles from a gutter, an idea that someone on this board came up with although I can't remember if they were going to do it with a chain saw. Maybe they are one of the guys in the video. If so, kudos. Based on the quality of both the drone and the cinematography, I'm not sure how much of a deterrent a 25K fine will be for these guys and well, any person who wants to weaponize the drone. That's kind of like deterring suicide by making it illegal. Although since it's Russia or some Russia like place, its out of FAA jurisdiction. I'm sure there will be all types of competitions about what people attach to their drones. I'm sure somewhere in the world, right now, there is a cat flying through the air. Or some poor kid's backpack.

'Drone wars' would make for some reality TV....

Average non-commercial drone speeds is 50 to 70 MPH. Commercial drones can fly as fast as 120MPH.

In regards to the New Zealand pizza drone delivery. The story mentions that the customer was 20 miles outside of a city but didn’t actually state the drone flew those 20 miles.

The FAA limits commercial non manned drone speeds to a 100MPH max so there will be no 240MPH pizza deliveries in the US even if desired.

Contraband transport. I see this as huge market. Criminal activity. Not just small timer "Yo, the drone be coming" but at cartel level. Remove the small pilot in the large scale transport of guns and drugs.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/09/2 ... l-orig.cnn